Mission

The Journal of Clinical Education in Physical Therapy is an open-access peer-reviewed journal published annually. Our purpose is to build and disseminate scholarly evidence related to clinical education and facilitate professional development among the physical therapy clinical and academic faculty of the future.  

Aim and Scope

JCEPT encourages research and innovative methods in clinical education, disseminate professional scholarship in the area of teaching and learning, and provides a forum to analyze and discuss clinical and clinical education issues in the field of physical therapy. The audience of clinical and academic faculty, clinicians, fellows and residents interested in educating physical therapy professionals to succeed in any clinical setting is encouraged to submit the following submission types: 1) original research, 2) clinic-related teaching methods, 3) narrative and systematic reviews, 4) critically appraised topics, and 5) clinical or education case reports. The recurring "Interprofessional Corner" is reserved for interprofessional collaborations or contributions from related health professions that are applicable to physical therapy clinical education. Finally, invited perspectives on educational topics and current trends will be published periodically .

Open Access Policy

JCEPT is published in partnership with Columbia University Libraries. All research articles published in JCEPT are fully open access: users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. Articles are published under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) license which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Authors of JCEPT journals retain copyright and publication rights for their work and may freely deposit versions of their work in an institutional or other repository of their choice.

Policy on Diversity and Inclusion

JCEPT values initiatives that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion to improve the quality of health education, the healthcare workforce, patient care and the overall health of society.  JCEPT supports equity initiatives that promote the creation of opportunities for historically underrepresented populations to have equitable access to professional growth opportunities and resource networks that are capable of closing the demographic disparities that still exist throughout the healthcare industry and in all spheres of institutional societal systems. In order to support the policy on diversity and inclusion JCEPT:

• Operates under a diverse Editorial Board representing various geographic locations, specialty areas, and health care settings
• Provides individuals the option to apply for a waiver for article processing fees
• Provides avenues for other related health professions to submit work that are applicable to physical therapy clinical education
• Encourages authors whose English is not their first language to submit  

Ethics

JCEPT adheres to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Code of Conduct, COPE Guidelines, as well as The Code of Ethics for the Physical Therapist (Code of Ethics) that delineates the ethical obligations of all physical therapists as determined by the House of Delegates of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA).

JCEPT requires authors to register all clinical trials via ClinicalTrials.gov at or before the time of first patient enrollment. In addition, it is the author’s responsibility to ensure that a patient’s anonymity be carefully protected and to verify that any experimental investigation with human subjects reported in the manuscript was performed with informed consent and following all the guidelines for experimental investigation with human subjects required by the institution(s) with which all the authors are affiliated.

The editors, members of the editorial board, and publisher's staff at JCEPT take their responsibility seriously to assure that the highest ethical publishing standards are maintained by assisting in safeguarding the medical scientific literature against fraudulent publications. Examples of fraud in scientific research include (but are not limited to):

• The submission of duplicate publications using similar data (i.e., attesting that work submitted is original when, in fact, it was submitted to or accepted by another journal);
• Falsification of data, copyright, or information regarding conflict of interest;
• Submission of work from other sources that was not done by the author and is presented as a new and original (plagiarism);
• Authorship (allowing one's name to appear as an author or adding an author to a manuscript) without substantial input or without having agreed to submission of the manuscript.  

Competing Interests

All JCEPT authors, editors, and reviewers must declare any and all competing interests that could be perceived as interfering with the unbiased presentation, peer review, and editorial decision-making and publication of research or non-research articles. Competing interests include any potentially conflicting financial, professional, or personal relationships with institutions, organizations, or other people. Financial competing interests include but are not limited to: ownership of stocks or shares, paid employment or consultancy, board membership, patents (pending or actual), research grants, travel grants and honoraria, and gifts. Non-financial competing interests include but are not limited to: acting as an expert witness, membership in a government or advisory board, relationship with funding bodies, personal relationships with individuals involved in the submission or evaluation of a paper. Failure to declare competing interests can result in rejection of a manuscript or retraction of a review. Any relevant competing interests are declared in the published article. Editors must take any competing interests into account during the review process including reviewer assignment and editorial decisions.

Language Policy

Language must be inclusive, respectful to all, and free of bias based on individual characteristics, conveying no stereotypes (e.g. use “chairperson” instead of “chairman”). Use people first language, to place person before characteristic label or adjective (e.g. “person with lower limb loss” instead of “leg amputee”). While submissions to JCEPT are accepted in English only, we encourage authors whose English is not their first language to also submit.    

Archiving Policy

JCEPT is archived in Columbia University’s Academic Commons. Academic Commons is Columbia University’s institutional repository, offering long-term public access to research shared by the Columbia community. A program of the Columbia University Libraries, Academic Commons provides secure, replicated storage for files in multiple formats. Academic Commons assigns a DOI and accurate metadata to each work to enhance discoverability.